The Mighty Fleming on Xinjiang
Posted: July 8th, 2009 | No Comments »
As the current events in Xinjiang unfurl the Times has reached for its archive rather swiftly to call up the articles sent to the paper in 1935 by their Special Travel Correspondent Peter Fleming across Xinjiang (or Turkestan as was). I’ll assume Fleming needs no introduction to readers of this blog.
Fleming was in Xinjiang at an interesting time: local rebellions, Chinese attempts to reassert control, Soviet scheming, warlords rampaging. The w hole thing of course became his book News From Tartary (first edition cover below).
No need to go on as you can read the articles Fleming sent back – Rivalries in Sinkiang – from the Times archive here. The Times archive also has some very funny and amusing non-China writing by Fleming too including his classic piece on bald men and the superiority of the nose over the chin – here
Fleming was, despite the overuse of the term, a genuine original and now a rare classic – take a stroll though his archive and enjoy.
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